Book Review: Punk 57

Months ago I read Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas and loved it so I knew I wanted to read more by her. I’d been hearing about Punk 57 for a long time and I finally read it this week.

Punk 57 is a dual POV and follows Ryen and Misha, seniors in high school. Ryan and Misha have been pen pals and best friends since they were in 5th grade. They live 30 minutes away from each other, but have never met. Then 3 months ago, Ryen stopped receiving letters from Misha and she has no idea why. She promised him a long time ago that she would never stop writing to him no matter what so she has still been writing to him.

3 months ago, Misha went through a tragic event and has been barely coping ever since. When he needed Ryen the most, he was unable to write to her – unable to put his feelings into words and on paper. But now part of his healing process is to spend the last 6 weeks of senior year at a different high school with a specific mission in mind. One of the good and bad things about going to this school is that it’s Ryen’s high school. But she’ll never know it’s him because he is attending under a fake identity, Masen Laurent. He’ll finally get to see her in person, but when he does she is the opposite of what he expected. She is a popular cheerleader who is rude and bullies the less popular kids. She is everything she has always claimed to hate in her letters. Meanwhile, Ryen can’t figure out why the new kid at school seems to have it out for her and why she feels drawn and attracted to him when he’s done nothing but try to bring her down. Can Misha get over the fact that Ryen is not who she says she is? And if/when he reveals his true identity, will Ryen forgive him for deceiving her?

I really liked this book. When the tragic event takes place at the beginning of the book I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get over the sadness of it and enjoy the book, but I’m glad I stuck with it because I ended up really liking it. Ryen annoyed me a little bit for the first half of the day with how she was acting and treating people, but as you get to know her better and learn about her past you realize why she is the way she is and then I ended up liking her.

The friendship between Misha and Ryen is really beautiful and I love how since the time that they were kids they had each other and felt like the other was the one that understood them the best.

There was a twist at the end that I really did not see coming at all so that made the book have even more depth in my opinion.

Overall I really liked this book. There is something really relatable to aspects of what the characters go through here which is wanting to be accepted, wanting friends and not wanting to be an outcast/wanting to be included and sometimes doing whatever it takes – even becoming someone else or giving up parts of yourself to make it happen. I also found out that the this takes place in the same world as her Devil’s Night series – Misha is cousins with one of the main characters from that series and we even meet him in Punk 57. That series is on my tbr so I’ll get to it eventually!

Read this if you want a spicy childhood friends to lovers romance that’s considered a bully romance.

P.S. If you’ve read this book already then you know the significance of the scarf in my photo! #iykyk